It strikes me that I haven’t crapped tediously on about copyright theft for a while, which must be a disappointment to all of you. Luckily a trigger has dropped into my lap in the shape of a friend letting me know that yet another site had all my books up on it.
The site was ebookr.com. Go check it out. It’s a nice-looking, cheery, friendly little website. Their tagline declares “We love ebooks”. Maybe they do. They also evidently love charging people to download, but don’t so much love bothering about the fact they’re trading in things that don’t belong to them.
What happens when you discover some new bunch of pirate gobknobs has stolen your booty? There’s no email address on the site (which might seem odd, surely, in such a fresh-faced and approachable place), but there is a form. So I used it, and asked them to take my work down. Five days later I hadn’t heard back. Surprise surprise. I knew what would happen if they did eventually reply, because in this game of whack-a-mole it’s the same story every time. They’ll refer you to their DMCA page. In case you’re wondering, here are the kind of hoops you have to jump through:
What information do we need in a DMCA Notice?
A properly formatted DMCA Notice will adhere to the guidelines and principals established by the DMCA itself. The necessary elements of a properly formed DMCA Notice are:
1. Clear identification of the person or entity submitting the DMCA Notice.
2. Clearly stated relationship to the copyright holder (self or authorized agent).
3. A specific listing of all content the DMCA Notice is requesting eBookr take down. Please keep in mind some content is posted multiple times and each instance will need to be specifically referenced.
4. Clear statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that you are copyright holder, or authorized to act on behalf of the copyright holder.
5. A “physical or electronic signature” of an authorized person to act on behalf of the owner. This is fulfilled by a name and a physical address that the authorized individual can be contacted should someone wish to contest your notification.
6. While not legally required by the DMCA, including “copyright violation” in the subject line of your email will flag your DMCA Notice and bypass spam categorization.
7. Submit the Notice to dmca (at) ebookr.com.
Yep. Not only do you have to prove you’re the author, but you’re required to reference every occasion on which some ‘sharing’ tossfrot has uploaded your book – despite the fact that someone must have written the bloody things, so it’s pretty obvious that someone’s copyright has been infringed, no? Notice the brazen assumption of the moral high ground, too – meanwhile huffily warning you not to commit the crime of perjury. Nice.
In the end I notified the publisher of the novels in question, and they set their legal department on them. My books were taken down. But you don’t have to look hard to find them on other sites…
And so?
Partially in response to my rather inflamatory post on SOPA, the very excellent Megan Lindholm proposed that instead of excessive measures like the bill, people should hound sites like these in a kind of grass roots protest, shaming them into behaving differently. It’s a lovely idea, but my suspicion is it simply wouldn’t happen. And note again how there’s no email address on the ebookr site: this is a deliberate policy, because it makes it just hard enough that most people won’t bother (and it also makes the site impossible to mailbomb).
So. What do you think? What can or should be done about this? Would you be willing to try to take a site like this down, or at least shake it gently by the throat until it stopped this kind of behaviour? Do you actually care? I wouldn’t blame you if you don’t, to be honest — it’s not your stuff. And that’s the reason sites like this do, and will always, exist… and they’ll get smarter, too, and use chirpy graphic design to portray themselves as hip and friendly and got-t0-be-legit, to the point where some people may not even realise they’re trading in stolen goods. With a place called ‘The Pirate Bay’, it’s pretty obvious. With these guys — and others, like Scribd — it’s down to you to remember that we’re still labouring under a capitalist model where people kinda want to get paid for what they own.
In the end…
And this is the reason I keep banging on about this stuff. It’s not just about grouchy authors trying to make sure they get the pennies that are owed. It’s about the fact that we’re still taking early steps into a truly new type of environment, and need to keep an eye on the changes we’re blithely accepting in our world. Are we okay with Google and Facebook having total and lasting access to everything we say and do and click? Are we comfortable with the way in which the Internet often makes it so easy to forget that we’re dealing with real — albeit distant — others, making people so rude or assumptive the whole damned time? With a little search savvy I can find out what you paid for your house, who your friends are, where your kids go to school, where your sister likes to hang out (she Foursquared and Instagrammed twice from 57 Bottles on Main twice this week, and the second time she was kind of drunk, I should know, I made sure to sit near to her) — are you fine with that? You are? That’s fine. Just checking. I’m not saying the Internet is evil. I’m just saying let’s keep our eyes open and not simply say ‘yes’ to everything just because it’s convenient; because it’s nicely-designed; because it’s (apparently) free.
This latest episode has at least helped me to ratify a personal position on copyright theft, which is to try to stop caring about it. If you want, you can do a search and find my books on similar “social sharing” sites, or stealeasys (not a real word, I’ve just made it up) like FileSonic, and have the lot for free. It’s up to you, in the end. It’s always up to all of us. I choose to believe the majority out there are honest – because I know that’s true. So, you know, I’m, like, totally chilled about it.
Though if you feel like retweeting to the effect that ebookr.com are assholes… then, well, I’m not going to stop you.
And in the meantime, here’s a probably naive thought toward another grass roots accommodation to our new world. It’s up to you whether you download my books for free (or someone else’s music, or TV show, or software). Your call. But if you do, maybe you could at least give a couple of bucks to a charity for something you do care about, or overtip your next underpaid waitress, or drop a coin in the broken-down busker’s hat even if he’s really not any good. Though I guess if FREE is so important to you, you’re going to be tight-fisted with cash across the board. So maybe let someone else take the last seat on the bus instead, or give an extra stroke to the next cat you encounter…
… but do something, yes? If you can’t tell the difference between right and wrong, I can’t help you with that. But it’d be nice if you gave something back.
First up…impressive word usage. Gobknobs. Tossfrot. Stealeasys. I’m in new vocab heaven.
“…people should hound sites like these in a kind of grass roots protest, shaming them into behaving differently”
There is no way on earth that these sort of sites (the ones that already exist) are going to be shamed into any sort of moral behaviour. Any grass roots protest in that direction will be a waste of energy. The only things that will stop them are a lawsuit or lack of profit. The people who really care need to be lobbying the government for legal intervention, targetting the sites that are obviously the worst offenders, but only once an acceptable alternative model has been agreed upon and is ready to put in its place. If there is nothing similar but properly legal to take the place of these sites, Joe Public will be up in arms, regardless of whether they have the right or wrong intentions or any real knowledge about the matter at all, and Joe Public can make a lot of noise and make politicians very nervous. I wonder, in the meantime, because that will take a lot of time, whether a government could get away with creating some sort of “piracy tax”, taxing these businesses so heavily that they are making so little money that it’s not worth their time to be in business anymore. Oooh, and maybe with all the money they could create decent quality, government-funded virtual libraries, since publishers have been giving existing bricks-and-mortar libraries huge headaches over e-book provision, which is helping their downfall no end.
“I choose to believe the majority out there are honest – because I know that’s true. So, you know, I’m, like, totally chilled about it.”
Haha. Oh, you’re too funny.
It has become more and more evident that most people are not honest when they don’t need or choose to be. When they’re not going to get their butt kicked, or the law isn’t going to prosecute them, or society isn’t going to shame them, or their Mum won’t find out and ground them, for taking something for free when they really should be paying for it, then they’re more than likely going to take it, especially if they can argue that it’s not their responsibility that these things are just there for the taking. As you said, it’s the anonymity of the web that has caused this problem to grow. Not many people would look you in the eye and half-inch one of your books even if they knew they would totally get away with it, because that a real life person standing in front of them is thinking bad things about their behaviour is enough to shame most people into behaving well.
The Internet and its lack of real-time physical interaction creates a solid safety barrier and so has largely eliminated social shame as an influence in people’s behaviour, causing extremes of anti-social and pro-social behaviour. It is sorting the wheat from the chaff, but there’s no telling which side the person behind the avatar and username is really on. I’m not sure we can do much about it except let it play out and hope like hell that the pro-social behaviour wins out eventually. I’m not sure odds are good, unfortunately, but the people fighting the good fight shouldn’t lose heart…because that’s all that’s keeping us going in a world that will likely remain very dog-eat-dog for a looooong time :o)
Agree with all of the above :-)
It strikes me that the real issue is lack of accountability in file sharing sites, if that were enforced (through the simple expedient of providing a valid name address, email and phone number when registering a domain name) then the medium which caused the problem can provide the solution.
That would certain help, yes – ebookr is registered by Domains by Proxy, for example, a GoDaddy facility which specifically enables hidden domain registrations.
>no email address on the ebookr site
Hmm, would something obvious like webmaster@ebookr.com work? or info@ebookr.com?
There would most likely be such an address, yes, but it’s not going to help people…
For me, the most pressing concern, is that creative jobs are seen by the vast majority of the general public as “fun” and are therefore not “real” jobs and, therefore, not worth paying for.
I don’t know why someone would value the work a taxi driver or a builder does over someone who slaves writing a book for a year but that seems to be the case.
You wouldn’t expect a builder to construct the house of your dreams and then say to him, “Actually, I don’t feel like paying. But I’ll tell everyone else about you. Thanks for the free house!”
The other day, on a website called fiverr, where you can do small jobs for $5 (like designing a logo or writing a short article), someone posted that they were looking for a writer to pen a feature length screenplay based on their idea for $5. For a job that would take at three months if not longer! You’d earn that $5 in a few hours by walking down the street looking for fallen change.
The creative world is a mystery to many people who are not involved and they simply don’t understand the sheer effort and hours that go into creating something. Maybe it’s because the end product can usually be consumed in a couple of hours e.g. a film or an album. If the film was six months long then I think more value would be attached to it.
I think the solution lies in changing the perception people have of creative jobs. They need to be seen as jobs and not just a “jolly”. Then they might be less inclined to want it for free. They might also see that the person who has created this wonderful product that brings culture and excitement into the consumer’s life, also has to buy bread and milk.
Hey there –
Good points, and I think you’re right: people don’t really see creative work as ‘work’. To be fair, I feel very fortunate to be able to make my living that way. But… it’s also work. And the only means I have for paying for stuff myself :-)
I think you’ve taken the correct approach to copyright theft, people who steal your work weren’t going to pay for it anyway so you can’t see it as a lost sale. It’s plausibly a positive since you’re getting your work out to more people. To my mind sites that make money from stolen work should be shut down. There are exisitng laws in most countries to handle things like that (see the megaupload.com story as an example).
I like to believe that most (or at least enough) people are honest and given easy access to legitimate resonably priced content they will pay for it. The movie and music companies failed to do this, for a long time it was easier and more convienient to steal rather than pay, given the added cost incentive (stealing is free) they almost encouraged the current environment.
On your post about SOPA most (knowledgeable) people opposing it weren’t pro copyright theft they were against a law that
* Could break the internet (I accept that many of the outcomes suggested are unlikely)
* Wouldn’t reduce Copyright Infringement, at best the implementation would make it ever so slightly harder for the average person to steal
The most likely outcome would be a ‘dark internet’ of unlisted IP addresses (i.e. those removed from the DNS) . It’s not much harder to got to 10.0.0.1 rather than http://www.StealHere.com and I’m pretty sure someone would write a tool to handle that for you.
There is a good chance SOPA would have increased theft because it would appear to be more under the radar.
PS: You should really have Amazon links on your bibliography page on your main site
Good points, all – and the idea of a ‘dark Internet’ is an interesting one (real cities have such areas, after all – and it’s up to you whether you choose to walk on the wrong side of the tracks).
I do have Amazon links on the main books page: do you mean in the full bibliography?
One thing that surprises me is that that you have to pursue these thieves personally. Are not your publishers equally as annoyed – and don’t they have more resources at their disposal for the pursuit of pirates?
I too like to believe that the majority of people out there are honest – but also believe basic human nature is something we still need to work on as a species.
Treu that :-)
And yes, i did set the publisher’s legal on them in the end… the problem is, once they’ve taken it down, then (especially on the sites that dress themselves up as social sharing) there’s nothing to stop someone else throwing them back up again the next day. And some sites insist on a rights form from the author themselves…
PS – I see you DID inform the publisher eventually – but surprised they didn’t spot it first…
If it’s any consolation, I’ve found your rants to be refreshing. Most opinions on such matters these days are so richly infused with that sense of entitlement that I’m queasy by the end. It’s indulgent, after all they’re preaching to the choir. Only the a stick-in-mud big business stooge would protest the goodness of free stuff. It’s the future and I’m wearing my shades.
Oh, there’s plenty of excuses to hide behind. It’s not theft, it’s all big business, or outdated business models. It’s almost like they’re making us download stuff for free. You know, if we were talking food and water, some kind of essential, then there might be a point. But it’s people helping themselves to what is a luxury. If I don’t get the song I liked on the radio by the end of the week, I’m not going to wither and die. I’m pretty sure I’m not unique in this.
I’d agree there’s opportunity on the internet and businesses have been slow to take notice or make use of it. Reasonable sharing can be profitable for both creators and consumers. After all, it was a old-school shared copy of Spares that led me to be reading this, and like most teenagers of my increasingly ancient generation, I spent Sunday evenings with my finger hovering over the pause button of my tape deck as the DJ ran down the Top 40. I’d also agree that’s wrong to assume to every copy is a lost sale, but it’s equally unreasonable to assume that nothing is lost. Just as one example: I have a colleague who downloaded an entire TV series recently, mostly because she couldn’t wait for it to be released in the UK. She’s not going to buy the box set now. She’s seen it and has the copies on DVD. She can (and did) argue that it’s the producers’ fault for not releasing it in the UK to her schedule, and that it’s on Sky, and Murdoch is a scab on the knee of humanity. What’s inarguable is that she got 22 episodes of TV without contributing a penny to anyone involved nor will she ever. She’s not a thief on conventional terms, I doubt she sneaks out of M&S with a pocketful of stolen lingerie and a microwave curry when no one is looking, and I don’t expect her to pop around the weekend and liberate my bike from the shed while I sleep. Well, I may be making an assumption or two there. I know anecdote is not the plural of data but I’m sure there are plenty of people not-stealing in the same way. I’m not entirely swayed by the claims that most people are honest. If people get away with something once, they’ll try again. Eventually, it becomes habitual and normal. MPs expenses, etc. People generally don’t slide up hill.
I’m not sure of a cure, and probably more sure that there isn’t one (especially via some of the proposed legislation), but I think exposing the issues from a different viewpoint is a good thing. The net is full of people preaching to that choir, quoting the gospel of entitlement. Of course, free is fantastic. But I expect that most of us wouldn’t be quite so pleased if at the end of month our salary wasn’t paid – after all – why pay us, surely we could find a another way to get money – and besides, freely donating our labour is benefiting society. Hallelujah.
I buy your books for the purely selfish reason that I want you to write more. I’m practically insisting on it. I’ll even buy the hardback if you promise to write a furious shark into it.
‘People generally don’t slide up a hill’ — I love that!
True on all counts, and glad I’m not coming off as a complete oaf, though I will post something more chirpy soon :-) I can’t promise to put a furious shark into the next book, but I’ll think about it, okay?
Yeah, the problem is not that most people don’t consider themselves honest, it’s that the definition of stealing becomes so fluid and malleable as the digital landscape shifts and changes. For example, I would never download a pirate movie or book, yet I’ve certainly ripped a lot of CDs in my time without thinking twice about it. In fact, I only stopped doing it once the music industry was well and truly shafted.
Also… ditto Katey: go gobknobs, tossfrots and stealeasy. Love your rants almost as much as your books. And ditto Guineapig: Envy of the “fun” professions certainly plays into all this.
Also loving the language in this post.
I found it interesting to read this so soon after reading Matt Gemmell’s “Piracy Threshold” post, which (entertainingly, and with not a little swearing) discusses the reasons people tend to steal stuff, but mostly from the perspective of customers of video media:
http://mattgemmell.com/2012/02/17/the-piracy-threshold/
I wonder if there’s any way of comparing the theft rates of books and video? I’d guess books are stolen a great deal less, because they’re easy to buy.
For example, at the moment, I’m waiting for iTunes to deliver me four episodes of _House_ that I’ve paid for in advance using a “Season Pass.” For some reason, after a mid-season break, the UK iTunes store has failed to carry on delivering the episodes.
I’m now exceptionally tempted to go and pirate at least those four episodes, because it would be a significantly better experience for me than I’m getting by *paying* for them.
That temptation has never struck me when it comes to buying books, because buying a book is nothing like as troublesome and frustrating as buying video content.
My guess is that the “piracy threshold” for books is such that, as you say, the only people stealing them are the small minority who you probably wouldn’t get money from even in the absence of piracy.
Went to that site to raise hell, and it’s gone. It’s like playing whack a mole, though. I’ve got two removed lately, and everytime I turn around, there’s another. I hate these lousy bastads. Some of them don’t either offer the product, just pretend to and take the money, and deliver nothing. Glad it’s gone. And thanks for pursuing this. We have to.
Hey Joe –
Great to hear that ebookr is on the run, but like you say – it’s whack a mole. We’ll keep fighting the good fight, though :-)
I was touched by your closing remarks, essentially an invitation to scale up one’s random acts of kindness as a karmic offset for having illicitly partaken of the fruits of another’s creativity, and will act accordingly. Thanks for a lovely suggestion. Another possible approach to discouraging intermediaries such as ebookr from more wholesale rapine of one’s work might be something I’ve thought might be put to good use in discouraging the rampant identity theft so often (and so devastatingly) perpetrated by computer-savvy but amoral folk upon their hardworking but less technologically-advantaged brethren. If one had the skill to backtrack a few such thieves to a point that their own identity became manifest (and please understand that I refer here to their corporeal rather than their cybernetic identities), then it would be possible for one possessing the requisite blend of civic-mindedness and remorseless sociopathy to call upon them during the wee hours some moonless night and express one’s disapproval in a suitably striking fashion. Something on the scale that traditionally ends with sowing salt on the burnt-out site, if you catch my drift. I imagine that only a handful of such creative exercises in social behavior modification, suitably publicized, would be sufficient to dampen the enthusiasm of the lesser predators for feeding off the already meager resources of the elderly and the technologically challenged. Seems worth a try, at any rate.
Of course, adapting this approach to copyright infringement issues might well warrant scaling back to a less draconian level, but as you are a very creative individual, I’m confident you can work out the appropriate adjustments for yourself.
Loved the latest book, by the way.
Glad you liked the latest book, and also the post :-) I’m rather drawn to your idea of average citizens exacting revenge upon the cyber-savvy: I was always very struck by the part in King/Bachman’s THINNER where the guy tries to bring down the curse of the “white man from town” (or something like that: been a while since I read it). Ultimately, though, I suspect the universe does its own job… you do pretty much reap what you sow. The assholes who rip off other people’s lives very, very seldom end up having the kind of life they think they’re entitled to.